


Siren Song

by dogpoet



Category: Wallander (UK TV), Wallander - All Media Types
Genre: Community: kink_bingo, Gen, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-03
Updated: 2012-12-03
Packaged: 2017-11-20 03:46:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/580965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogpoet/pseuds/dogpoet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt always hears the call of danger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Siren Song

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by [ariadnes_string](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ariadnes_string).
> 
> Content notes: Written for kink bingo (danger kink). Mention of violence, self-harm, risky behaviour.

You are who you are:  
You run after suspects without calling for backup. You don’t tell anyone  
where you’re going. You order Anne-Britt to wait in the car.

If you travel, if you run, if you drink whole seas of vodka, like a character  
from a folktale, if you play roulette with disease  
(you look in the mirror and see your father),  
with luck, you’ll die by sixty.

You bear the scar where a knife grazed your heart.  
You were reckless then, and time hasn’t changed you.  
You love the feel of the dog’s jaws on your arm. There is a time to live

and a time to die. There is a time to fill your lungs  
with billowing smoke. There is a time to enter burning buildings  
in the guise of saving lives. Smaller risks, you take them: 

three whiskies before dinner, one bottle of wine,  
two brandies, another whisky, and half a bottle of Frïs. Bet

and win. Get in the car,  
your hands floating above the wheel, the road  
insubstantial and ghostly before you. Air through the open window,

wailing. You once, twice, three times, four, failed to save a girl’s life. You killed a man.

At fifteen, your daughter took two hundred pills.  
As death neared, she changed her mind, but couldn’t cry out.  
You heard her nonetheless, you heard her silent call.  
And you answered, your own heart slowing, stuttering, stopping,  
the white line marking the wound on your skin  
obscured by golden hair.


End file.
